Opinion: RHETA JOHNSON: Orphan dogs and "Put Claus Back in Christmas"
Fishtrap Hallow, MS
She is a brindle mix. When I ask what kind of mix, the veterinarian says, “Well.”Somebody kept the puppy about a year and a half – again, the vet assigned an age – found her a bother and drove to my woods in the North Mississippi hollow to put her out. In a poor county with no animal shelter or conscience, it happens.
Her name is Lucinda, and that’s how I came to have a Christmas dog.
Lucinda sleeps in a box-store dog bed atop a big brown club chair in the living room. Her manners are good, considering, except for a penchant for jumping to the center of the dining-room table when nobody’s looking.
My old dogs tolerate her, and they are excellent judges of character.
Lucinda blends right into the Christmas clutter of my unorganized house, not yet on Southern Living’s radar. She looks good curled like a comma beneath the sepia-toned photograph of my husband as a child of 6 or 7 visiting Santa, probably for the last time.
Hines is perched lightly on Santa’s knee, and has his hands stuffed in his jeans pockets in a defensive kind of posture, as if to disabuse any notion of a hug. There’s a dubious look on his face that stops one shade short of a sneer.
This Santa would have had trouble fooling a newborn. His dark sideburns are visible beneath the Santa hat, and he looks mad-dog mean, not jolly.
Hines is hedging his bets, and Santa is making quick Christmas cash. It’s what the French call “a marriage of convenience.”
With the tony, white-lit decorating everyone does these days, you don’t see as much of Santa Claus as you used to. It’s as if suddenly people find the Jolly Old Elf tacky.
I’ve thought of starting yet another campaign: “Put Claus back in Christmas!”
We need the idea of Santa Claus. He stands for the fantastical thought that someone cares – if we are sleeping, if we are awake. And because he cares, we should be good for goodness’ sake. Plus, nobody wages war in the name of Santa Claus. We can all agree on him.
I know, in a world, a country, where people are mowed down at office Christmas parties there may be more to worry about than a dog dropped to die and the paucity of Santa Clauses. But I’ve reached the “Candide” stage of my life and increasingly believe there’s merit in tending my own garden.
Small things matter: old photos, lost dogs, a hand-me-down, handmade music box with an angel playing a Liberace grand. If it makes me smile, I keep it. Somehow I am still in love with life.
A puppy was not in our plans. Travel was. We keep insisting to one another that someone will see Lucinda and want to adopt her, and that will be fine by us. She will be someone else’s Christmas puppy.
But Lucinda looks at us with her coffee eyes the same way Hines is looking at Santa Claus in the old photo. She’s not buying it.
Rheta Grimsley Johnson’s most recent book is “Hank Hung the Moon … And Warmed Our Cold, Cold Hearts.” Comments are welcomed at rhetagrimsley@aol.com.